Home Pastors Articles for Pastors The Myth of Seeker-Sensitive Worship

The Myth of Seeker-Sensitive Worship

In my little dictionary widget, a “Seeker” is defined like this:

seek |sek|

verb (past and past participle sought |sôt|) [with obj.]

• attempt to find (something): they came here to seek shelter from biting winter winds.

• attempt or desire to obtain or achieve (something): the new regime sought his extradition | [no obj., with infinitive] : her parents had never sought to interfere with her freedom.

• ask for (something) from someone: he sought help from the police.

• (seek someone/something out) search for and find someone or something: it’s his job to seek out new customers.

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I’m beginning to rethink this idea of “seeker sensitive worship.”

There are legitimate “seekers” of the Truth out there, but when it comes to musical worship, we’ve defined “seeker” as someone who wants a show, who we don’t want to offend. We do this in an attempt to lead them to make a decision for Jesus through our musical worship simply being the holster for the message.

Somehow, we’ve watered down our expression of worship in order to give them a sport to spectate instead of an expression that leads them to participate. Whether you’re attractional, missional, in-between, charismatic, liturgical…and the list goes on…the Church has got to start processing through the worship of our King and the people the Church would define as seekers.

I think for a lot of us, we’ve decided to react to this issue instead of respond. In our generation, more than any other form of expression found in the Church is music. It’s a centerpiece of our culture at large that we gather around.

So how does the Church integrate this properly for both people who find themselves on the fringes and the people who are devout to the Faith?

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davidwalker@churchleaders.com'
For the year of 2012, David will be ruthlessly documenting his own journey through an intentional process of being discipled and learning to disciple others. Furthermore, he'll also be using his blog to write his thoughts on the state of worship and worship pastors in the American church as it relates to discipleship. He would love to have you along for the journey this year!David Walker has been leading and equipping people in corporate worship for almost a decade, most of which has been spent at City Church in Greenville, SC, as well as an itinerant worship leader for conferences, retreats, city-wide gatherings and other events. He has released two albums and has also been featured on one of Catalyst's worship albums. David, his wife Lauren and two children, Zoe and Levi, live in Spartanburg SC. To contact David or book him for an event, please visit davidwalkeronline.com